Is the front-end real-name system coming? Internet "de-anonymization" is an inevitable trend

This article analyzes the pros and cons of Weibo's front-end real-name system from two aspects, and objectively explains what may happen after the front-end real-name system is implemented. It is recommended for students who focus on Weibo operations.

Big Vs cleared their followers overnight, and momos were in a panic. This is a unique scene that has appeared on the Internet recently.

The incident can be traced back to a post by Weibo finance celebrity Hong Rong on October 13, in which he revealed that all self-media on the Internet must implement the real-name system, that is, the real name of the celebrity must be displayed at the front of the first-level page. The next day, he added that before the end of October, self-media accounts with 1 million fans will display their real names at the front; in December, self-media accounts with 500,000 fans will display their real names at the front; self-media accounts with 100,000 fans will complete real-name authentication with ID cards in the background and display their professional information at the front.

Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei also responded personally, but his wavering and vague statements made the public opinion field more complicated. He first responded that the number of fans of real-name big Vs is 1 million, "and in the future it will be at most 500,000." Then, he personally overturned the accuracy of the news, claiming that "his words do not count."

The climax of the incident also occurred during the grayscale test of the real-name system initiated by Wang Gaofei. His real name, education, occupation and other information were displayed on the front end. Big Vs and spectators took action and even led a series of online confrontations on the boundary between anonymity and privacy. On the one hand, there were the opposition represented by the top bloggers, who urgently cleared their fans to avoid risks and shouted that no egg would be left unbroken if the nest was overturned. On the other hand, there were supporters who opposed "keyboard warriors" and believed that this move could cure the stubborn disease of online violence.

The front-end real-name system is another exploration of the virtual boundary and a reshaping of the Weibo ecosystem. In the face of the controversial public opinion field, how Weibo can grasp the scale of change and minimize the negative impact has become the key to the next step.

01 A game about the boundaries of privacy

From the time the news of "real-name system for big Vs" was revealed on October 13 to now, in just over ten days, it has fermented into a major debate with multiple opinions.

Most of the Weibo influencers who were closely related to this news raised the banner of opposition. Their views mainly focused on the issue of personal privacy boundaries. In their view, after the backend real-name system has been implemented, there is no need to enforce the frontend real-name system.

Backstage real-name registration was proposed in the "Internet User Account Name Management Regulations" issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China in 2015, which stipulates that all netizens need to note their real names during the registration and authentication process when using the Internet. This move is regarded as a key step in the online real-name system. While respecting personal privacy, backstage real-name registration also draws a clear boundary for cyberspace.

Different from the protection of personal privacy by real-name in the background, real-name in the front-end is to put real name, occupation and other personal information prominently on the homepage. Combined with the IP location function launched last year, these influential big Vs have a strong sense of crisis of "opening the box". Education blogger @毛猫虫Claire recounted her experience of being harassed by a fanatical fan on Weibo, "Through private messages, he scanned his ID card, property certificate and so on to me." She finally mentioned, "Knowing the real name, IP address, and the details usually displayed online, it shouldn't be difficult to find a person."

There are also top bloggers who use the slippery slope theory to prove that this is essentially a top-down Internet "naked streaking" action , which will start with the big Vs and then spread to ordinary netizens, calling on all users to jointly boycott this system.

Some netizens have indeed begun to be paranoid. Although they do not meet the standards of the front-end real-name system, they are still worried about the popularity of this system and are hesitant about whether to delete their Internet footprints. Some two-dimensional painters and writers have reacted particularly strongly, and even revealed that they would resist by canceling their accounts and running away.

In the view of another group of people, the front-end real-name system, which is intended to restrict freedom of speech, may discourage high-quality big V bloggers. They will not dare to express their opinions freely for fear of being punished, which will directly affect the freedom of the Weibo public opinion field.

Supporters believe that the front-end real-name system clearly targets influential big V bloggers, and focuses on the fields of current affairs, entertainment and finance. "The greater the traffic, the greater the responsibility, especially when it comes to some current affairs, entertainment and financial topics, the traffic of big Vs is much higher than that of ordinary users," said Weibo Xinzhi blogger @庄时利和. He believes that while the opinions of big Vs are more easily spread, ordinary users have the right to know what kind of people are making these comments.

Hu Xijin also talked about the "contradictory" relationship between real names in the background and in the front. In his opinion, anonymity in the front is a concealment from the public. "Allowing 'shooting from the dark' to discuss hot public events and set the pace is obviously more harmful than beneficial to the health of our public opinion field."

Take the entertainment industry as an example. There are many KOLs who, in order to gain traffic and attention, spread a lot of unverified gossip news, or even maliciously fabricate materials to stir up topics, thus causing a lot of subsequent disputes. In the past two years, the fan-hat wars in the fan circle have also amplified the negative emotions of the circle, resulting in an extremely torn public opinion field. Many bloggers believe that the front-end real-name system can effectively curb such vicious disputes.

Doujiao found that most bloggers in the fields of current affairs, finance, and general knowledge did not react much to the front-end real-name system, because most of them directly chose to use their real names as their IDs, or indicate their real names and backgrounds in the notes. For these bloggers, the actual impact was not significant.

Other netizens who support the idea believe that big V bloggers have already achieved high incomes by virtue of their accumulated influence, so they naturally need to bear the constraints of the real-name system. This is also forcing big Vs to speak prudently and avoid online violence and the spread of false information.

This binary debate about the pros and cons of online real-name registration is essentially a game over the boundaries of privacy in cyberspace. Platforms need to find a balance between the policy environment, free expression and commercial interests.

02 Internet de-anonymization has become an inevitable trend

In fact, the trend of real-name registration is not limited to Weibo.

A few days after the news of Weibo's front-end real-name system broke out, another piece of news that "Bilibili will implement front-end real-name by the end of the month" also spread like wildfire. At the same time, a blogger also confirmed that, in addition to Weibo, all other platforms have successively released signals of front-end real-name. Front-end real-name is already a definite trend, and the controversy surrounding Weibo is just the beginning.

Looking back at the long history of the Internet's development, the Internet real-name system has always been the unified pace of the platform. It can be traced back to 2012, when the "Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Strengthening the Protection of Internet Information" clearly required that "Internet service providers" need to "require users to provide real identity information" through user agreements and other forms, and the process of Internet real-name system was launched.

The following year, the "Regulations on the Protection of Personal Information of Telecommunications and Internet Users" and the "Regulations on the Registration of Real Identity Information of Telephone Users" ushered in the era of personal mobile phone real-name authentication in my country and opened up the authentication channel for the online real-name system. In 2014, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Interim Regulations on the Development and Management of Public Information Services of Instant Messaging Tools" for the instant messaging field.

2015 was a critical year for the Internet real-name system. In this year, the system for the Internet real-name system became increasingly clear, and the pace of the entire network also tended to be consistent. On March 1 of the same year, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Internet User Account Name Management Regulations", which clarified the principle of "backstage real-name, front-stage voluntary" across the entire platform. In addition, it also put forward regulations on account names, avatars, published content and other information.

Around 2016, all major platforms began to promote the process of real-name authentication for users on their platforms. WeChat has pushed users to complete their real-name information by restricting the use of basic functions such as receiving money, grabbing red envelopes, and using change to send red envelopes. Douban's strategy is similar. If you want to use functions such as "publishing" and "creating a group" on the platform, you must complete real-name authentication. In other words, the platform deeply binds Internet services with real-name authentication, using this as a boost to force users to complete real-name authentication.

It was not until 2017 that the country officially implemented the "Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China". Since then, the online real-name system has become an obligation that platforms and users must fulfill. Major platforms have responded one after another. On the basis of giving users a certain degree of autonomy in choice, they can also effectively restrict "keyboard warriors" and facilitate subsequent accountability.

As social communication software matures, the Cyberspace Administration of China also issued the "Internet Group Information Service Management Regulations" in 2017 to supervise the information dissemination and diffusion of various Internet groups such as WeChat groups, QQ groups, Weibo groups, and Tieba groups, and requires users in the group to undergo real-name authentication. Taking WeChat as an example, if you fail to complete real-name authentication, you will not be able to join a WeChat group chat.

The major event in the process of Internet real-name registration is the transformation of Rabbit District from anonymous to real-name registration. Rabbit District refers to the section of Jinjiang Forum dedicated to netizens' messages. Because the ID of this section is 2, it is named "rabbit", which is a homophone of the English word "two". Until 2020, there is still no threshold for posting in Rabbit District. Anyone can post at will, and even customize their ID. The fearless mechanism has filled Rabbit District with rumors and abuse, and has become a "garbage dump" on the public Internet. On March 12, 2020, Jinjiang Rabbit District issued an announcement announcing the implementation of the real-name registration system. The transformation of Rabbit District from anonymous to real-name registration is seen as the end of the era of Internet anonymity.

The real-name system was upgraded again last year. Article 12 of the "Internet User Account Information Management Regulations" requires that "Internet information service providers should display the Internet Protocol (IP) address location information of Internet user accounts within a reasonable range on the Internet user account information page to facilitate public supervision for the public interest."

Under this regulation, the IP location function was officially launched, also first released on Weibo. At the same time, the debate about regional discrimination spread, and users even spontaneously changed to Douban's default nickname "momo" and used the pink dinosaur avatar automatically matched by the system to form the "momo army" in an attempt to hide their identities on the Internet. Despite this, the pace of all platforms has not stopped, and all platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat quickly followed up, and IP location was officially implemented on all platforms.

In July this year, the Cyberspace Administration of China publicly solicited opinions on the "Regulations on the Management of Online Violence Information (Draft for Comments)", which proposed that Internet information service providers should strengthen the management of online community sections and online groups, and prohibit the creation of topic sections and group accounts that publish content with negative connotations in the name of anonymous submissions and shouting. On the same day, Zhihu announced the offline of the anonymity function, and "I'm going to be anonymous, thank you for the invitation" officially became an Internet relic.

Judging from the development trend of the Internet, de-anonymization has become an irreversible trend, and the pace of the real-name system for big Vs can only move forward.

03 A single move affects the entire body, and the Weibo ecosystem is reshaped

As the first launch pad for the front-end real-name system, Weibo's content ecology has undergone subtle changes during this period of information fermentation and grayscale testing.

The most significant change is the loss of creators caused by the front-end real-name system. This problem is particularly evident in vertical fields such as painters and writers. These bloggers attract fans' interest by creating original graphic content with two-dimensional attributes. The interactive topics are also concentrated on vertical content, and rarely involve discussions on hot topics on the Internet. Surfing the two-dimensional network, they do not want to expose their three-dimensional life too much. In this round of real-name system controversy, many painters and writers have issued cancellation warnings. However, considering the irreplaceable nature of Weibo's content ecology, most bloggers are still waiting and watching.

More importantly, under the warning of real-name registration, bloggers who have repeatedly misled public sentiment and spread false information have also begun to frequently remove their followers. @天津股侠, a financial blogger who has incited the enthusiasm of stock investors, said, "If the real-name registration system must be implemented, I will consider not using this Weibo account that I have used for 13 years!" Some bloggers have also begun to delete paid articles containing negative public opinion in batches to avoid the risks of the real-name registration system.

From this perspective, the front-end real-name system has indeed further amplified the supervisory effectiveness of the Weibo public opinion field and reduced the risk of negative information dissemination.

Another impact of the front-end real-name system is concentrated on the marketing account level. With its huge user base, public domain communication nature, and content ecology built on hot search topics, Weibo inevitably attracted a number of marketing accounts that guide public opinion. These marketing accounts disrupted the information environment on Weibo by joining forces to rush to the top of the list. In the post-truth era, they have repeatedly guided the emotional divergence of controversial topics, further grabbing user traffic and affecting the platform ecology.

In fact, in order to avoid marketing groups rushing to the top of the hot search list, Weibo has adjusted the algorithm rules of the hot search list many times in the past two years. It also launched personalized hot searches for individuals this year in an attempt to avoid the negative rush caused by marketing groups. The implementation of the front-end real-name system is also a beneficial attempt to rush to the top of the hot search list. Based on the front-end real-name mechanism, many unverified water army speeches do not even need platform supervision and identification. Self-restraint and review can be formed before the content is released, which can avoid the risk of distorted public opinion to a certain extent and adjust the ecological atmosphere of the platform.

Judging from the current results, the impact and changes brought about by the Weibo front-end real-name system are still ongoing. On the one hand, the contradiction between creators' freedom and privacy security has indeed produced a negative impact on content loss. On the other hand, the exposure of front-end information has fundamentally increased the risk controllability of online violence and false information, and released a positive development signal for cyberspace.

Author: Qiao Langjun; Official Account: Spicy